Yukiko, a typist sent to wartime French Indochina, falls in love with the married forestry official Tomioka, and the two reunite in the bombed-out ruins of postwar Tokyo. Dragged between squalid inns, other lovers and a trip to remote Yakushima, they cling to a bond neither can break nor save.
Books mentioned in Floating Clouds (3)
The Possessed by Fyodor Dostoevsky: “Tomioka had not entirely given up his dream of death. He recalled how, in The Possessed, which he had read in Indochina long ago, Stavrogin carefully prepared for death by smearing a strong silk cord thickly with soap beforehand so that dying would hurt as little as possible. [auto-translated]”
Bel-Ami by Guy de Maupassant: “At the camp in Hanoi I read a novel called Bel-Ami, and you are like its hero. But he is a homeless drifter who uses women as a ladder to get ahead, while you use only women as your ladder. [auto-translated]”
L'Assommoir by Émile Zola: “Tomioka thought he would stop at a secondhand shop and buy a novel to take home. What he wanted to read was Zola. He recalled that a mixed-race typist at the forestry office in Dalat had once lent him Zola's L'Assommoir. [auto-translated]”